Fallen Night
by Hoshikage
Summary: [Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger] Tragedy strikes. Inspired by the events of episode 32.


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Abaranger. No infringement of the rights of any of the original creators or copyright holders is intended. 

Warnings: Angst! Lots of it. And spoilers. Big ones. (A lot of this is an expansion on the events of episode 32...)

_**Fallen Night**_  
by Hoshikage

Asuka's life had begun with black; a black hole, filled with the quiet rasping of frightened breath, the warm press of bodies crushed into a too-small hiding place. His first clear memory was of the cold sweat on his mother's cheek, her silent sobs as she pressed him close to her breast in the complete darkness, without a hint of light to betray their presence to the enemy.

He had known they were hunted, even then, and he had stayed silent and still, that first time he could remember and every time after that when their tiny clan had crawled into some cave or hole in the ground to hide. When the black had been sundered one awful night, split by a surge of light and an explosion, his mother had died.

He wore black always, after that.

* * *

Ranru watched nervously as Asuka rode away ahead of them on the back of his black mount. Despite the fact that the rest of them kept urging their own, vaguely velociraptor-shaped robots to their top speed, they never seemed to catch up. She couldn't stop thinking of how Asuka had changed out of his Earth clothes, the jackets emblazoned with their respective dinosaurs that they all wore; how he had clasped each of their hands with a smile, and how much it had seemed like he was saying goodbye. "H-hey," she finally said when the silence was too much to bear, turning to look at Yukito where he stared stolidly ahead. "You don't think Asuka is--" 

The blue helmet shook once sharply in negation. "Don't," he snapped in response, and then his voice softened, a note of something that Ranru had never heard from him before entering his voice. Was it - fear? Or despair?

"Don't say it," Yukito murmured. "Not yet."

* * *

Everything Asuka knew was black, even when he grew into a warrior in his own right. His plain armor, dulled to charcoal though it was with dust and use. The magical armor he had earned the right to wear, its surface shining, and gleaming with the trimming of gold. Brachio's skin - the mighty Bakuryuu, largest of them all, speaking comfortingly to Asuka in the depths of the night as he perched on the enormous metal head to look at the stars, and never once feared to fall. The eyes of his best friend, Mizuho, the eyes that sparkled in the firelight at night as he laughed and teased, always bringing up their spirits as he coaxed them into forgetting, for a few minutes, about the endless grim struggle to win free of the Evorian. 

Except Mahoro - Mahoro's eyes were warm and brown, like her hair, like her faded image that looked smilingly at him whenever he opened the battered locket he still wore next to his heart--

But Mahoro was dead now. All that was left of her was that creature calling herself Jannu who had taken Mahoro's body, and then taken the dark armor that Asuka had so foolishly unsealed to try and rescue Mahoro when she first disappeared into the Evorian stronghold and did not return.

More black... but the black of that evil armor was different than the cool, free emptiness of a black night, different than the soft luster of black hair. The evil armor swallowed all light, all love and hope that touched it, leaving only a bleak, scarred surface that radiated nothing but malice, and imprisoned its wearer in darkness of the spirit, a blind, mindless haze of rage. Nothing had existed for Asuka then, when he had been trapped inside. He still did not remember what he had done; he only knew what he had been told, of the deaths that came at his unknowing hands. The blankness in his mind about that time was total; darker than the blackness of sleep, for there had been nothing even as ephemeral as a dream.

The Evorian could not be allowed to continue to use the armor's power... but there was more to it than that.

_Save her. Please..._

He had been asked, but even if he hadn't, he would never leave things this way. The armor was evil incarnate. He could not leave anyone to be consumed by it. Not even the creature who had killed his wife.

_I'm coming, Jannu. It will all end today..._

* * *

Yukito folded his arms and waited as Ryouga came running up to them, panting. He couldn't have it look as if he'd actually been _worrying_ about Ryouga, after all. 

Ryouga bent over, getting his breath back, and then straightened up exuberantly, thrusting out his hands in a victory pose. "Did it!" he crowed triumphantly.

Yukito glanced at the smoldering remains of the giant, mechanical centipede. "Yeah." They had done it, as Asuka had asked. Destroyed the monster while he went after Jannu. But without his distraction, that airship Jannu was piloting would have blasted them to bits before they had a chance.

Without Asuka... without the power he had given them... probably the entire Earth would have been made into a near-lifeless waste by now, just like the world Asuka himself had come from. For all that Yukito had tried to ignore the call to arms, for all that he had refused to befriend the teammates he'd been thrown together with... he felt that debt to Asuka sinking onto his shoulders, becoming heavier every moment as his heart slowly accepted the truth of his new life. And even more, the fact that he _liked_ it. The old life he'd had now seemed cold and lonely, friendless and cheerless.

"So... I guess this is thanks to Asuka, too," he said aloud.

"Yup!" Ryouga agreed happily, obviously unaware of all Yukito was thinking.

Ranru gasped aloud. "Where _is_ Asuka?"

Yukito looked up, feeling his eyes drawn to the airship that hovered motionlessly high above them like some kind of fat crustacean, things that looked uncomfortably like sharp jaws opening and closing at the front, as though the ship itself longed to be devouring everything that lay before it. But nothing happened. It didn't move, didn't fire any weapons. It just sat there, frozen by the confrontation taking place in its control room.

Ryouga burst out, "Let's go help him!"

Yukito paused. "This is his fight," he said quietly. He remembered Asuka's black eyes, remembered how they had turned into hard chips of jet, softening only for a moment as he clasped each of their hands before they froze over again. His voice had been nearly as hard as he asked them to attack the centipede.

Asuka wanted to settle things with Jannu alone, that was all. Yukito knew what Ranru was thinking - how final Asuka's gesture had seemed, how there had been a "goodbye" behind his words that he hadn't said. But Yukito just couldn't bring himself to believe that Asuka would die so easily, not after surviving years of guerilla warfare on Dino-Earth. Yukito understood Ranru's fear, but he knew, deep in his heart, that Asuka wouldn't just leave them.

Not after he'd come so far, and lost so much. It just couldn't end that way.

Yukito smiled a little as Ryouga looked at him uncertainly. He was ironically amused by his own words, even as he said them.

"Have a little faith in your friends, Ryouga."

* * *

Asuka watched the dark armor stagger toward him, one clawlike black hand raised as though in entreaty. Sparks showered around them, raining in cascades of glowing embers from the walls. The control console streamed smoke and flame into the air. Lights flickered and went out as the airship rocked under his feet with the force of the explosions tearing it apart. 

None of it mattered.

Jannu _was_ Mahoro, had been all along. How could he not have seen it? How could he not have understood that the Evorian had twisted her and all she truly longed for was to be set free? How could he have mistaken that for possession?

And now the evil armor was devouring her as he watched. She'd come to herself in his arms, but only for moments before the killing rage had taken her again and she'd screamed and attacked him with her bare hands, maddened and shrieking, a wild thing utterly devoid of the warmth and gentleness of the woman he still loved deep in his heart.

A tear escaped his eye and slipped down his cheek.

This was _his_ fault. The black madness that was destroying what little of Mahoro the Evorian had left - it was _his_ doing, his utter insanity at setting this hideous thing free to prey on everyone and everything he knew. The desperate action he'd taken out of love had turned on him, become a black snake in his hands and bitten him, poisoning his life. And even then, its hunger unsatisfied, it had taken the one person he would have given anything to save.

He flinched as something just behind him exploded and sent a new flurry of sparks fluttering past him. "Mahoro..."

It was too late now. He knew how to free Mahoro from the armor - it was simpler than it seemed, since all he had to do was land a final blow and allow it to take him instead, surrender to it once more. But nothing could stop the destruction of the ship. He'd failed at his impossible second chance to save Mahoro. All he could do now was make sure she died free.

He closed his trembling hands on the hilt of his sword and slowly raised it to strike.

This would end it. At last, no one would fall prey to the evil armor again. The explosion would destroy it - and at last, he could atone for what he'd done -

"This is goodbye," he said, forcing the words out through a throat gone tight. With barely a thought, his shining black armor appeared, the gold edges sparkling with the reflected sparks still streaking through the smoky air. More lights flickered and died, leaving only the glittering embers and the flash of explosions to light the blackness. "Forever..."

With the extra strength the armor gave him, he lunged forward to slash across the dark armor's chest. As it reeled, the console exploded completely, blinding him with the light. He closed his eyes to the explosions and the flames around them, waiting only for the feeling of cold numbness to clamp around his body. He concentrated on taking what small comfort he could, knowing that Mahoro would be unconscious and would feel no pain as it all came to an end -

The bright flashes of color and light through the visor of his helmet, though his closed eyelids, suddenly stopped. The deepest, most all-consuming blackness he could imagine swept over him, slicking over the surface of his mind like a pool of tar sucking him under its surface. Something buried deep inside him remembered this feeling with horror, even though the memory had been lost to him before. As the heat of the flames suddenly vanished, his body went numb and limp, the dark armor holding him up as it solidified like a shell of ice around his body, and that piece of him that _knew_ this feeling and feared it like nothing else flooded the rest of his dimming awareness with panic.

Asuka tried to scream, but all that came out was a gutteral growl that sounded nothing like his own voice as the dark armor choked off the sound before it could escape his throat. He tried to fight, but he couldn't feel his limbs, could feel nothing but the black presence smothering him, drowning him. For a moment his mind scrabbled wildly, hopelessly, to somehow escape this nightmare he'd created for himself -

_No._

He stopped.

No. He wouldn't die like this. He would remember who he was. He would die as _himself,_ not some crazed mindless thing as the armor wanted. He stopped struggling, gave in and let the blackness swallow him up, turning all his focus inward to the light he knew still burned inside his spirit.

He would remember who he was. He would remember his friends, his love. And remember that it was over.

Asuka let himself fall, let everything return once again to black.

He felt nothing as the airship exploded in a blossom of flame, scattering burning debris in every direction.

* * *

"Ryouga! Ryouga, stop it!" 

Ryouga paid no attention to Ranru's voice. He paid no attention to the fact that he could barely see his hands in front of him, either. He knelt by another huge pile of debris, still smoldering, and plunged his hands into the wreckage to heave a twisted metal beam to the left, barely noticing a sting of pain where the burned skin of his hands came into contact with more hot metal. The only light came from the flames. The air was a sheet of solid black overhead, clouds and smoke blotting out the stars and the moon, and he knew vaguely that he'd been searching for hours, since full daylight, but that didn't matter either, any more than Yukito's and Ranru's attempts to stop him had mattered -

"Ryouga, that's _enough!"_

He was going to just ignore Yukito again when suddenly a fist crashed into his jaw, sending him sprawling onto the ground. He stared dazedly up at Yukito, standing glaring at him and shaking his hand, as Ranru looked on with a horrified expression.

"You can't keep doing this," Yukito said harshly. "We have to go back... back home."

Ryouga scrambled back to his feet, fury suddenly sparking inside him at Yukito's cold words. "Not until we find Asuka!" he shouted. "We can't just abandon him!"

"Ryouga, face facts!" Yukito yelled back. "He's _dead!"_

"No!" Ryouga snarled, then stopped short as the fire behind him flared and he saw shining reflections on Yukito's cheeks, tracks of tears gleaming in the flickering light. He could never have imagined before this moment that he would see Yukito weep.

"Ryouga," Ranru said in a choked voice, "There's - there's just no way anyone - anything - could have survived that."

"We can't accomplish anything here," Yukito said. "And what will Mai do if her father doesn't come home either?"

Mai. Ryouga's throat closed up. When his brother and sister-in-law had both died in a car crash and left Mai alone in the world, he'd taken her on as his daughter without hesitation. He knew what Yukito was saying - that his responsibility to Mai came before everything else - but his heart still rebelled at the thought of leaving this place without finding Asuka. Even if... even if he was...

"Asuka... Asuka was family, too," Ryouga protested, but it came out weakly, and he froze as he realized that he'd used the past tense without thinking. It started to sink in that he knew that Yukito and Ranru were right. The knowledge stabbed into him like knives. His breath caught, and for a moment he couldn't breathe, couldn't speak past the pain. He could only gasp, but it came out more like a sob.

And Ranru suddenly flung her arms around him in a desperate hug, crying hopelessly, seeking solace in their friendship that he had no idea how to give. His knees buckled, and they both collapsed to the ground. Ryouga bent his head over Ranru's shoulder, tears stinging his eyes, when he suddenly felt another pair of arms enclose them. He looked up, but couldn't see Yukito's face, only the bleached, pale ends of his black hair as he curled around them both, shoulders shaking.

Ryouga gave in and cried like a child, huddled together with Yukito and Ranru as the flames of the burning wreckage slowly went out, the black night closing in around them in its own embrace.


End file.
